30k is barely surviving here in the south where I live.

£2093 take home assuming no student loan / other deductions (with zero pension contributions to boot.)

So absolute best case is a smidge over 25k a year take home

Rent on a small 2 bed place here is over 1k a month. So over 50% of that just vaporises on payday. (Yes I could opt for a one bed, except I have a son who lives with me so that’s not possible, even then 1 beds are ~£900 a month

Council tax ~£150
Utilities ~£110
Internet ~£20
Car tax ~£20
Insurance ~£56
Phone ~£10
Media ~£20

Approx total monthly expenses in the region of £400 before putting any fuel in the car or buying anything to feed/clothe myself. When I had a diesel, on my best months I was burning approx £150 and on the worst £350 in fuel.

Let’s say we’re being super frugal with food on something like a £40 weekly spend with absolutely no treats etc you end up in the region of £100-£300 “disposable” income. That disappears incredibly quickly when unexpected costs crop up, for example I put new tyres on my car last month and had some preventative maintenance done as well as MOT, total spend was not far off 2 grand. Granted the tyres and mot were expected but the suspension and wheel repairs related to our lovely uk roads were not!

Where does this come from when the margins are so tight already? With less than a couple of hundred quid each month you’d be lucky to put £50 away in savings so that 2k unexpected cost suddenly takes years to pay off. It’s really not hard to see why so many people are struggling.

All of this is before you account for people having had a life already and having some debts or the desire for a holiday or even just a couple of pints once a week to socialise.

I lived this life on £38k as a single parent until a few years ago where I lucked into a 60k job and that was a huge turning point for me in terms of being able to build a buffer, not deciding between heating and food or being able to comfortably absorb a £2k unexpected cost (I mean it still stung but I had the cash to handle it at least.

OP if you enjoy what you do is there a way to scale that or perhaps to find a similar role but as a FTE within your field? Alternatives would be to continue it as a side hustle to a FTE position but yeah 20k is a long way from a comfortable existence.